Re: Tesla or Westinghouse?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Michael Edmiston wrote:

> Lawrence Ruby has a nice report in The Physics Teacher (May 2002) about DC
> power transmission rather than AC.  In his report he describes the "battle"
> between Edison and Tesla over DC versus AC power transmission.  He also says
> it was the 3-phase generator and high-voltage transformation process that
> allowed Tesla to win.
>
> The history books I have say the DC/AC battle was waged between Thomas
> Edison and George Westinghouse, not between Edison and Tesla.

Tesla appears to have been partially "erased" from history.  I've heard
several theories as to why this occurred.  The most sensible one is that
General Electric financed a long-running series of science textbooks which
gave an altered history where Charles Steinmetz is the "inventor" of the
AC power system.   (But note that 60Hz was personally determined by Tesla
himself, who had to fight the Westinghouse engineers who preferred a much
higher frequency as the standard.)

I remember growing up thinking that electric distribution was invented by
large corporations, not by individuals, and probably this idea arose as
corporate propaganda leaked into the history books (or at least into
children's science books.)


>  It is my
> understanding that the works of Tesla, the patents of which were bought by
> Westinghouse, were what ultimately allowed Westinghouse to "win," but I was
> not under the impression that Tesla himself was part of the debate with
> Edison.

I've heard Tesla was involved in the pro-AC publicity campaign, where
Tesla himself gave demonstrations with lightning bolts leaping from his
fingers and setting fire to wooden objects.  This was deceptive, same as
Edison's using the so-called AC "death current" to electrocute animals in
public show.  60Hz was not used to make those harmless lightning bolts,
and the AC frequency needs to be well above 10KHz in order not to
stimulate your nerves and cause heart failure.

> I was also under the impression that Tesla's work leading to the induction
> motor was the major deciding factor in favor of AC because it allowed a
> brushless arcless motor.

That and the ability of AC energy flow to be transformed up into high
voltage, low current.  If Edison won the contract to harness Niagra falls
to light the city of Buffalo, his generators would have been limited to a
couple of kilovolts, and his cross-country conductors would have been
immensely large.  (Hmmm.  How large?  Feet thick?)



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